Hamisha Daryani Ahuja’s Namaste Wahala was forgettable. The 2021 film served as a try-out for the Indian-Nigerian fusion. Its main point of impact was its cross-cultural novelty. To be fair, a slow-motion meet cute on the beach and a Broda Shaggi moment come to mind. On paper, the cross-cultural ideas show huge numbers to be mined from a potential market. But with two full projects so far, they seem like works that should be left on paper, not on screen, where the ideas best reflect the greatest value. Maybe a third outing will be the charm. But the less compelling they become, the less buy-in they would get from the potential audience.

In Ahuja’s latest, Postcards, a 6-episode series, we move from the shores of Nigeria to India. In a smartly devised premise, a mother and son (played by Sola Sobowale and Tobi Bakre) during an impaired stage of their relationship find themselves in India for peculiar reasons unknown to both. The mother is in India for medical tourism, while the son has won a spot to be part of a dance crew shooting in India and is one step closer to his Japa dream. These events form familiar circumstances to us on this side of the world. Their time in India, especially the mother’s, touches and heals the people they meet.

Postcards is a narrative with multiple characters, close to an ensemble setup, who find themselves in different situations when we are introduced to them, but life’s coincidence is set to bring them together at the end in some way. We know it, but the characters don’t know it. What is left in this mosaic of interrelated characters is for them to find their paths to each other naturally while remaining compelling for the viewers. Unfortunately, their separate lives which are supposed to keep a viewer interested until the end provide little to no original drama, at least not executed compellingly.

Interestingly, some of these characters are actually related but have only been dispersed around the world, sorry just India, and would only be meeting here once again by chance. So, committing to the series means that we must follow each person’s space of life across six 30-something episodes. What could be the harm? Sadly, Postcards doesn’t deliver. An avid eye realises that there are more compelling routes around some choices. What’s pulling these characters to each other? What is pushing these characters from each other? The answers have to carry more. If they are avoiding each other, is there a bitter past that’s set to come to a head-on? Is there promise of a more fulfilling future? Are there “rules” that one of them is breaking that could cause conflict when it spills? Why should we keep watching and not switch to episodes of Monk, Dexter or Psych. Postcards doesn’t knock on your curiosity door; it doesn’t even show up— likely to leave a viewer indifferent to the fate of the characters.

In their pockets of space, even if not living compelling lives, their stories should be told in a compelling nature. We all don’t live the best lives that can be told on screen—agreed. But it is the work of film to leave you with a thousand guesses about what the next scene could hold. Nothing exciting is given to Richard Mofe-Damijo who plays the grumpy boss going through it all and won’t let anyone get close, a perennial character we have seen many times on our screens. We don’t find out why Tobi Bakre has been avoiding his mother until very late in the series. On the reveal, it becomes a revelation that could have been used to a more compelling degree being that he is not just out of uni campus, out of the state, not out of the country but out of the continent to pursue a dream not many Nigerian parents would agree to. It arrives late. The mother-son characters didn’t have to meet. But close calls to heighten the drama would have done something. We also have the warring couple (played by Rahama Sadau and Rajneesh Duggal) who have lived a happy life and we meet at a period when they’re on opposing lines of the “do we want to have kids?” question. These scenarios should make good drama but they are not packaged well enough.

Bakre’s story has relatively the most fun in it. It manages to deliver a backyard high school bully trope but is drawn thin. Bakre’s character is first established as an unemployed loafer who’s possibly not meeting his parents’ expectations or has a rift with them. And other things are teased along the way to unnecessarily throw one off in what should be a drama and not a mystery. We trudge through the episodes out of habit. We are convinced that at the end of the series, our characters will find themselves and come together. Something has to happen to bring them together. And it does. As much emotion as this should carry, the superficial reunion dinner scene couldn’t save this one.

Throughout Postcards, it feels a lot like you are watching a production, and the acting doesn’t come true to life enough. The actors have a call-and-response feel to their dialogue and their actions. In many scenes, you sense anticipation from a character to their on-screen partner’s fall or approach. These make some actions not come off naturally because it looks like they know what their co-star would do already. You are clearly watching a production at this point. Multiple forms of line-spitting and reading rather than delivering. These problems are not saved by the editing either.

The fact that Nigerians are spread all over the world and can find themselves anywhere is a common saying. This idea should make for a good 2-hour film or limited series on paper. In Postcards, the story drags the long-missed loved ones to meet each other again in India, leading to a forceful healing in various forms. And very little is interesting about the characters beyond their Nigerianness that occasionally gets thrown into the narrative. 

While Namaste Wahala finds it a sweet spot in history books as a major first, what will Postcards be remembered for while being a second or third at it? With a novelty tag missing, we might label it the first Bolly-Nollywood series if that makes it feel any special. This is another Netflix original set to get lost to the algorithm. It’s not inspiring and it’s not surprising. We are left with a forgettable “product” whose lifespan lasts a weekend or two depending on word of mouth. Okay, maybe a month max. Nevertheless, this show has been made and there are packed lessons for the future. Still, we wonder what stopped this particular one from striving for excellence.

The algorithm era will leave the biggest prints of blandness on this side of the world. Only the novel spots will be polished with annual glitters. For this side of the world where a lot of filmmakers still have a lot of learning to do, making films based on the designs of the algorithm leaves very little to desire for the paying subscribers who are now being compelled to have their individual accounts due to the crackdown on password sharing. These services get to make more money. What are we third-world countries left with culturally?

Postcards premiered on Netflix on May 3.

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Side Musings

• I like the shot when Sola Sobowale returns home after an Owambe early on in the film and the shot stays wide. I wish it remained so for a few more seconds to emphasize her loneliness instead of cutting to a medium and closeup.
• Are you quick with dance sequences? Is he supposed to say no?
• What year is this set? He didn’t dress like this in Nigeria. So why would he dress like a clown?
• Broda Shaggi really didnt show up. Thank God.
• Thank God that they were thirty-something-minute episodes.
• Hamisha loves herself a cameo.
• There’s this other side of India that we see in this series. It’s been a while since I saw a Bollywood film but the places we see here are just quite positively different and new to me.
• Prod: In this film, I’ve RMD, Sola Sobowale, Tobi Bakre, Rahama Sadau.
  Netflix: (stares in silence)
  Prod: …and Nancy Isime.
  Netflix: we’ll take it.
• oh yeah, Nancy Isime was in this series. My point is, did it really have to be Nancy Isime?
• You see a Netflix project these days, and you just see those things that made them say yes to it! And those things are things you’ve seen in some form in earlier projects, but you’re not sure you really want to sit down to watch again at that moment. But because it’s slapped across the home screen of your Netflix or because it’s the latest high-profile release, you can not but just give it a watch. The algorithm’s work is done there.
• Is it better than Namaste Wahala? I won’t answer. Both are cut from the same material that doesn’t inspire.